Helicopter Versus Free-Range Parenting

The scars of growing up in a simpler time in the 1970s

Kids today are regulated more than ever.

Growing up in the ‘70s

When I was growing up, my mother would leave my brother and me alone for the hour before school started. She was a teacher in a nearby town and she would have to leave the house at 7 a.m. every morning. Our school didn’t start for another hour and a half.

She had no choice but to leave us alone. There was no money for daycare, no relatives to help, and no latchkey programs at the schools.

This started when I was in kindergarten and my brother was in second grade. This would continue for our entire school life.

This was not child abuse or neglect. Most everyone in the small town in Kansas where I grew up did it that way in the 1970s.

We would get ourselves ready, serve ourselves a bowl of cereal, and we would walk the three blocks to school at 8 am.

When school was over, we would walk home, let ourselves into the house, drop our bags and run out to play. My mom wouldn’t be home for at least another hour. The door was never locked; there was no need to lock the doors.

Play in the ‘70s

Very few of the kids in my neighborhood played organized sports. It was a poor neighborhood and organized sports had fees and equipment requirements.

We really had no need for organized sports. There were enough neighborhood kids to put together our own soccer, baseball, basketball and football games.

Of course, the soccer game might be four on four and the goal posts, a couple of discarded shirts, might have only been six feet apart. Out of bounds was over the fence and the part of the yard where the dog liked to poop.

When we played football in two of our front yards, there was a strict “no tackling in the driveway” rule.

Baseball might have been played with a tennis racket, tennis ball, bare hands and ghost runners.

If we were playing in the street, interference from a passing car was an automatic do over.

Self-Regulated

The point is that we made our own rules to meet the needs of the equipment and location. We chose our own teams and we called our own fouls.

If one team dominated, we stopped play and exchanged players to make the game more even.

This freedom and responsibility gave us leadership skills and taught us problem solving.

Yes, sometimes we got hurt.

Yes, sometimes we skipped school.

And sometimes, kids got bullied. But even that was self-regulated.

Dangerous times

It was not a perfect system and I am the first to admit, I do not want my six year old having the freedom and responsibility that I had. I certainly don’t want her taking the risks that we did.

I remember one time dragging an old mattress home that we had found discarded in the alley and climbing onto the roof of the house and jumping onto the mattress.

I can’t imagine being okay with my daughter doing that. My mother only said to be careful and get rid of the mattress when we were done.

We were probably left alone more than most kids, even for that time.

But, we grew and learned and were more capable at a younger age than kids are today.

By the rules

Kids today are signed up for dance classes, basketball teams and baseball tournaments.

They are told who to play with, when and where to play, and by what rules to play.

When the game is lopsided, one side cheers while the other side complains about the officiating.

If you leave your kids at home to run to the store, the cops are called.

Again, I would never leave my six year old all alone and I would not have her walk three blocks to school by herself.

Too many things can happen. There are too many bad people in the world.

Changing times

The world is just different than it used to be and I feel sorry for the kids today.

They will never experience the joy of building a rickety old tree house by themselves out of materials that they found in the trash.

However, they will also not have to experience the pain when that rickety old treehouse falls apart from under them and they cut their leg falling out of the tree.

I still have the scar today. It is a reminder of when times were different, scary, wonderful, dangerous, exciting, and free.

The scar was just part of growing up. I am glad I lived in a time when I could grow up largely unregulated.

I am also glad I survived that time. Some did not.

My daughter will never have a scar on her leg because she built an unsafe playhouse…at least if I have anything to say about it.

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